The protocol for hiring clerks is that each justice gets four clerks, though they only hire one if considering retirement, so that their other existing clerks can find positions with other justices.

If Kennedy retires, Trump would have his second chance to nominate a justice to the Court. His first, Justice Neil Gorsuch, replaced the late Antonin Scalia, who, like Gorsuch, was a conservative. Thus, the appointment did not change the balance of power on the Court.

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Replacing Kennedy, however, would mean replacing the justice who has been the swing vote on many Court decisions, including the legalization of gay marriage.

Trump’s first appointment “largely kept the balance of the Court in place,” said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor. “That would not be the situation with replacing Justice Kennedy (who has) time and again supplied the fifth vote for the majority in key decisions.”

Before he was elected, Trump released a list of 21 possible judges he would consider for a Supreme Court vacancy. All judges on the list, including Gorsuch, were considered conservative.

Analysts say replacing Kennedy with a Trump nominee would impact many past rulings, including the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

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“As the Court’s most important justice — at the center of the institution’s ideological balance — Justice Kennedy’s ability to bridge the divide between left and right on critical issues such as the right to access abortion cannot be overstated,” said Elizabeth Wydra, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center. “Replacing Justice Kennedy with a Trump nominee would almost certainly sound the death knell for Roe, just as candidate Trump promised during the 2016 campaign.”

“Replacing Kennedy with a Gorsuch-esque justice would give us five justices that were to Kennedy’s right,” wrote Aaron Blake in The Washington Post. “And that … would be basically unprecedented.”